BUSH ON IMMIGRATION: THE PRESIDENT

BUSH ON IMMIGRATION: THE PRESIDENT; Plan for Illegal Immigrant Workers Draws Fire From Two Sides

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: January 8, 2004

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7—
President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to pass his plan to give illegal immigrant workers temporary legal status. The proposal drew criticism from some groups involved in the issue for not going far enough to help immigrants and from others for rewarding people who had entered the country illegally.

The proposal would let millions of illegal immigrants obtain work visas for three years, renewable for an unspecified period, if they can show that they have jobs and if their employers certify that no Americans can be found to perform the work. The plan would also let employers import new workers on the same temporary basis to work at jobs that they cannot fill with Americans.

Announcing the plan in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Bush said it made economic sense to allow employers to find willing workers for jobs that Americans did not want. He cast the proposal as part of a tradition of welcoming immigration. The United States has an estimated eight million or more illegal immigrants.

''Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics -- some of the jobs being generated in America's growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling,'' Mr. Bush said to cheers from an audience that included cabinet members and representatives of Hispanic groups. ''Out of common sense and fairness, our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans are not filling. We must make our immigration laws more rational and more humane, and I believe we can do so without jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens.''

Mr. Bush said he was not offering amnesty to illegal immigrants already here. He emphasized that the status for workers who entered without visas or work authorizations would be temporary and would end with most of them leaving.

''This program expects temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired, and there should be financial incentives for them to do so,'' Mr. Bush said.

He was alluding to his proposal that workers in the program be allowed to benefit, after returning home, from their payments to Social Security and individual retirement programs that could be set up for them while here.

Mr. Bush announced the plan on Wednesday so he could present it to President Vicente Fox of Mexico when the two leaders meet next week in Mexico. Mr. Bush had been working on a similar package soon after taking office three years ago, but delayed it after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The announcement represented his first big election year policy initiative, one intended in part to appeal to Hispanics, a particularly fast-growing sector of the electorate. It also sought to satisfy a longstanding demand by employers that Washington make it easier to hire foreign workers for jobs in hotels, on farms, in construction and in other generally low-wage unskilled positions that Americans have reportedly been reluctant to take, even in the economic downturn.

The plan drew criticism from Democrats for hurting American workers and not doing enough to help immigrants.

''The president's proposal will help big corporations who currently employ undocumented workers,'' Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential hopeful, said in a statement. ''But it does nothing to place hard-working immigrants on a path to citizenship and would create a permanent underclass of service workers with second-class status.''

John J. Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said the plan deepened ''the potential for abuse and exploitation of these workers while undermining wages and labor protections for all workers.''

The view that the proposal would hurt American workers was shared by one of the leading groups that want to keep strict limits on immigration, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

''With nine million unemployed Americans and the nation in the midst of a jobless recovery,'' a spokesman for the federation, David Ray, said, ''we need a foreign guest worker program like we need a hole in the head. It's going to have a huge downward pressure on wages and working conditions. It will basically allow employers unfettered access to cheap exploitable workers. If they claim they can't fill a job with an American, they can fill it with a foreign worker.''

Business groups said the plan would help the economy by ensuring employers access to needed workers.

''We're extremely pleased that the president has gotten engaged in the immigration debate strongly now, because this will move the issue forward, generally and on Capitol Hill,'' said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has been pushing for a temporary-worker program. ''We are supportive of the proposal but also recognize that there are many details that have to be worked out.''

In political terms, Mr. Bush is walking a thin line between offering a program generous enough to immigrants that it can win Democrats' backing in Congress while avoiding anything that looks like an amnesty, an approach that many conservatives oppose. As a result, the White House was vague about many details, saying it would work with Congress to fill in the blanks.

Mr. Bush said he would support increasing the number of people who can obtain permanent residency status and start on a path toward citizenship. He said that increase would not be reserved for people in the temporary-worker program and that workers in the program would receive no special consideration for permanent residency.

''They will not be given unfair advantage over people who have followed legal procedures from the start,'' he said.

Some critics said the plan would not work because most workers would not want to risk being deported after their temporary legal status expired. White House officials said they would negotiate with Congress to determine how long renewals should be.

''If the offer is a temporary visa with uncertain prospects for renewal and no path to permanent residency, you won't have a lot of takers from the undocumenteds here,'' said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which seeks to liberalize immigration. ''And you'll probably have a lot of people who come into the country to participate in the temporary program and then jump the program.''

Mr. Bush said the program should be accompanied by an increase in the number of people granted permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship.

''America's a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America,'' Mr. Bush said. ''The citizenship line, however, is too long. And our current limits on legal immigration are too low. My administration will work with Congress to increase the annual number of green cards that can lead to citizenship.''

He did not provide details. Critics said the plan would have to include an extremely large increase in green cards to allow even a fraction of the millions of people eligible for the temporary-worker program to have a chance at permanent residency and citizenship.

A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, Chris Bentley, said the United States issued 475,000 new green cards a year, with 144,000 going to people being admitted specifically to work.

The United States also admits many people on temporary work visas without permanent residency rights. In 2002, nearly 1.3 million people were admitted on temporary visas, including 102,000 for nonskilled agricultural and nonagricultural posts, the immigration agency says.

Photo: President Bush at the immigration ceremony with, from left, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. (Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times) Chart/Map: ''Illegal Immigrants in the United States'' A report released last year by the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that there were 7 million illegal immigrants living in the United States in 2000. Current estimates by other organizations reach as high as 14 million. Map of the United States shows unauthorized residents, as a percentage of the state population. AN INCREASING POPULATION DURING THE 1990's The illegal immigrant population grew by several hundred thousand each year, as more unauthorized residents entered the United States than left. Chart shows the number of new unauthorized residents and the number leaving the unauthorized resident population since 1990+. *Individual data was not available for eight states that each had fewer than 2,500 unauthorized residents in 1990 and 2000. +Includes those who left the United States, died or became legal residents.